Ieva – La cascade de la montagne de l’aube

I have been playing this short, sensitive album in repeat for two hours now. There is a cycle, a pattern that is being born through this loop, which caresses the dark room I am sitting in with a soft, meditative fog. This cycle begins with a slow process of Ieva putting the pieces into positions and building the stage for what’s to come. I cannot put the finger exactly on the exact spot where the music hits the guts. These slow, droning sounds are soft, yet tempt the mind to dive into their fractal corridors for more details, and I ask myself if these are grim waves of beaten sounds, or brighter, more vivid sounds of the trumpeting dawn. There is a dialogue between these two options, and thus a story is being slowly told, as the track flows further and further.

The apex of this work, at the end of the beautiful buildup, is a remarkable ceremonial chant, in which endless energies seem to burst out and conclude the previous part, enigmatic as it was. The chants are moving, stirring waves in the deep ocean of drones they were put in. They make the listener want to hear more. They make the listener want to participate. When it ends, the intense chants leave a slow trail of dreamy sounds that make me question my memory. Where there really people chanting just minutes ago? It is all a dream like state and it softly merges with the first seconds of the album once again. Before I know it, the next loop brings these ritualistic singing once again, and again, and after several of these dreamy loops, there is no beginning and no end, just a deep, endless mantra and beautiful visions.